A Very Merry Vocabulary Lesson
by ObsidianEmbrace
Summary: Snape teaches Harry an important lesson. If he happens to sing Christmas carols while doing so, surely Snape isn't to blame.


**Disclaimer: Characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling. **

**Story Notes: Takes place in first year. Canon does not apply. **

**A Very Merry Vocabulary Lesson**

"Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh. O'er the fields-"

"_Or_ the fields?" Ron interrupted Harry's verse. "_What_ or the fields?" he asked with a wrinkled nose as he caught up to Harry in the corridor. "I think you missed a word or two."

"Not that kind of _or_," Harry said with a roll of his eyes, and then took a breath, preparing to begin the song again, even deeper under his breath this time.

"What sort then?"

"Er…" Harry scratched his nose as he thought on that. "…not sure, I guess."

"Maybe like those enchanted oars that we used when we came across the lake," Ron suggested helpfully. "'Cept," he said with a shrug, "then you wouldn't be using them in a field."

Harry frowned, humming the words between his pinched lips as he tried to figure out exactly what the song could mean.

"Is it a Muggle song?" Ron pressed.

"Is _what_ a Muggle song?"

Ron and Harry turned. Hermione was coming toward them, a curious look on her face.

"It's a right strange one," Ron told her, "about riding boats across fields. Harry was singing it."

Hermione raised her eyebrows in Harry's direction. "I've never heard a song like that before."

"That's not what it's-"

"It's not your fault it doesn't make any sense," Ron assured him, patting his arm in a manner meant to placate.

"Of course not," Hermione agreed. "Maybe someone else knows it," she suggested brightly. Before Harry could protest, she'd spun around. "Oh, Dean!" she called, spotting him as he rounded the corner with Seamus. She waved him over. "Do you know a Muggle song about boats traveling across a field?" she asked eagerly.

"And there's snow too, right Harry?" Ron added, with a nudge to his friend.

"Snow?" Dean questioned as he looked between them.

"Is it a Christmas song?" Seamus asked, sticking his head quickly into the little group. Everyone else turned to Harry expectantly.

"Look," he said in exasperation, "it isn't about boats…it's just a Christmas song that my cousin used to sing real loud-"

"Your _cousin_?" a disdainful voice rang out. The clutch of Gryffindors turned around. Draco Malfoy and his own little gaggle of Slytherins were glaring back at them. "Isn't your cousin a _Muggle_, Potter?"

"So what, Malfoy?" Ron demanded, his freckled face already heating with anger.

"We're wizards, Weasley," Draco sniffed. "We have _wizarding_ Christmas songs."

"I bet they aren't about boats though," Seamus challenged from beside Ron. "And ones that can paddle across fields too!"

Pansy made a face. "Muggles can't make boats paddle across a field."

"There aren't any boats," Harry tried to say, but his protests were drowned out by rising voices as the two groups argued about whether or not Muggles could figure out how to propel a boat across a field.

"Maybe they built one with wheels," Neville spoke up tentatively, having joined the group late.

"Oh please," Draco scoffed. "Muggles have cars, you idiot."

"Don't call him an idiot!" Hermione immediately interjected.

"I'll call him what I like," Draco sneered.

"It's all right," Neville said to Hermione, whose cheeks had gone indignantly pink. "He's right. Muggles do have cars."

"Muggle cars are _brilliant_."

The two groups turned again. Fred and George were nodding knowingly as they came up the corridor, with Lee Jordan between them, though Harry couldn't be certain which twin had made the statement.

"Muggles only have cars because they can't do magic," Draco sniffed.

The older boys looked between themselves in amusement. George raised his eyebrow. "Brilliant deduction, Malfoy."

"Slytherins are masters of stating the obvious," Fred said with a poke to Lee's ribs.

"Especially firsties," Lee said with a grin. Malfoy glared up at them, his blond hair quivering resentfully.

"Better not provoke him," George advised with a mock-serious nod. "Never know what the ickle Slytherin might do," he said with a wink for Malfoy.

The other Gryffindors snickered.

The titters turned to gasps as Malfoy lobbed his fist at George's face. George, nonplussed, somehow managed to duck the furious bunched fingers as he danced to the left. Malfoy toppled into Ron. Ron shoved Malfoy away with a snarl. Crabbe and Goyle launched themselves at Ron in retaliation and before Harry could tell how it had happened, he was in the middle of a very loud and boisterous brawl.

He squeaked when someone yanked him sideways by the hair.

There were shouts filling the corridor as Harry was jostled by elbows and the occasional foot.

"What is the meaning of this?!"

The furious roar startled the brawling students almost immediately, though most of the involved limbs remained tangled together.

Harry looked up; Snape was glaring down at the mangled group of children.

"Professor Snape," Malfoy cried as he tried to stand up from where he was pinned under Ron, "they attacked us! And it was all Potter's fault!"

Snape's gaze swept over the students, until he found Harry. His eyes narrowed.

"I should have known."

"It wasn't Harry's fault, sir!" Ron said indignantly.

"That's right, Professor," Hermione added. "He was only trying to remember the words to a Christmas carol and Malfoy and-"

"Silence, Miss Granger," Snape snapped. "Of course it was Potter's fault. You can tell just by looking at his guilty little face."

"I don't have any look on my face," Harry objected as he pushed himself off the hard floor. "I was only singing a song-"

"About boats rowing across fields," Ron piped up again, his attempt at helpfulness never-ending.

Snape gave him a withering look. "Don't be an idiot, Weasley. Boats do not sail across fields."

"It's a Muggle carol," Malfoy told him with a curl of his lip.

Snape scowled. "You can sing ridiculous Muggle songs in your own time, Potter."

"It is my own time," Harry pointed out. "Classes are over for the day. And I was only singing a song-"

"10 points for contradicting a teacher," Snape reprimanded him. Harry glared up at him. "If you were _only_ singing a song, how do you explain this melee in the corridor?" Snape asked icily, giving a glower in return.

"I was only trying to understand the words-"

"So," Snape said with a sneer, "it was your lack of adequate knowledge of vocabulary which caused this spectacle?"

"It wasn't my fault," Harry tried to tell him, but Snape smiled viciously.

"Perhaps you need some assistance with your vocabulary, Potter," he suggested. "Come with me."

Harry balked; there was no way he was going to let Snape punish him for singing a song.

"Now, Potter," Snape commanded, "or it will be thirty points from Gryffindor for defiance."

The other Gryffindors were giving Harry nervous looks. Harry sighed.

"All _right_," he huffed.

"Ten more points for your disrespect," Snape decided. When Harry's face darkened and he opened his mouth to object, Snape asked, "Perhaps you'd care to try for those thirty points after all."

Harry shut his mouth.

Snape, looking decidedly happy, turned on his heel and swept toward the dungeons. Harry followed him dejectedly.

His friends patted him on the back sympathetically.

"Don't worry, Harry," Ron told him, "we'll figure it out by the time you get back."

"Brilliant," Harry muttered to himself as he trudged after Snape.

He had to hurry to keep up with Snape's long strides.

"Sit," Snape ordered as soon as they stepped into his classroom.

When as Harry complied, a long piece of parchment and a quill and inkpot appeared in front of him.

Harry looked up at Snape in surprise. He had assumed he would be scrubbing cauldrons.

Snape was smirking at him, as if somehow making fun of him.

"What song were you singing?" he inquired.

"It was a Christmas carol my cousin used to sing-"

Snape waved an impatient hand. "I have no interest in your doting relatives, Potter," he interrupted.

"They didn't-"

"The name of the song," Snape stressed, leaning down until Harry couldn't help but feel a little menaced by the closeness of Snape's nose.

"I don't know," he muttered.

"You don't know?" Snape repeated with a scowl. He shook his head when Harry opened his mouth to explain. "Never mind. Tell me the first few lines," he instructed. He dipped the quill into the ink and raised it expectantly.

Harry stared at him. Perhaps the Professor had gone a bit mad. Why would he care about the words to a Christamas song?

"The _words_," Snape snapped.

"Erm…" Harry licked his lips and sang the first lines quietly, almost to himself again.

"You didn't need to actually _sing_ the song, Potter," Snape told him disgustedly. He was already writing neatly across the top of the parchment. He finished quickly and then set the quill and parchment in front of Harry.

"One hundred times, Potter and perhaps you will not need to start a brawl in the corridor in order to enjoy the holidays with your choice of music." His tone made it clear that he did not share Harry's enthusiasm for Dudley's favorite Christmas song.

"I didn't-" Harry started to say indignantly, but at Snape's answering glare, he snapped his mouth shut and began to write. He wanted to make it to at least some of the end of term feast.

"Legibly, Potter or you can write it one hundred times for each day you are on holiday," Snape told him as he swept away toward his storage cupboard.

Harry spared a second to scowl at Snape's back before settling in to his lines. He stopped abruptly before he was even halfway through the first one.

"Erm, Professor?"

Snape turned around. "Finished already?" he asked sarcastically.

"You spelled a word wrong," Harry told him smugly in response.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "I certainly did not."

Harry smiled to himself and held out the parchment. "You spelled 'or' wrong," he said, pointing to the offending word with his quill's feathers. "It's o-r." Harry didn't mention it might be the type of oar which propelled Hagrid's magical boats.

Snape stalked over and snatched the sheet from Harry's hand. His eyes scanned the page briefly before he slapped it down again on Harry's desk with his palm.

"You are even dafter than I suspected, Potter," he drawled. "_O'er_," he stressed, pointing to the word with one long finger, "is a contraction. _Over_. _Over_ the fields. It would be nonsensical if it were exchanged with the spelling o-r."

"Oh." Harry's cheeks felt warm as he turned back to his parchment.

"I see you were in desperate need of this lesson," Snape mocked. "Get to work."

Harry scowled down at his parchment. He began scratching the words to Dudley's stupid Christmas carol angrily onto the parchment.

Stupid Ron, anyway.

And stupid git Malfoy.

Harry's head snapped up. Snape still had his back to Harry as he pored over the contents of his cupboard. But the nearly-silent _humming _was definitely coming from his direction. And the tune was very familiar…

"Bells on bobtails ring-"

Harry snickered.

The almost-whisper stopped abruptly. Snape stiffened.

"If you don't have enough to keep you occupied _and_ silent, Potter, I am certain I have at least a dozen cauldrons which require scrubbing."

"That's all right, sir," Harry said hastily, bending his head back over his lines.

He was on line forty-six when he heard the jaunty tune again. Harry bent low over his parchment, scribbling furiously so he wouldn't give himself away.

"…this one horse open sleigh. Hey!"

Harry clamped a hand over his mouth to hide his snicker that time.

Snape…singing!

Wait until he told Ron…

**The End.**


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